


Firsts

by snuffymcsnuff



Category: Fallout 4
Genre: Drabbles, F/M, just me being unable to let these losers be
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-09-28
Updated: 2017-09-01
Packaged: 2018-08-18 09:19:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 2,851
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8157122
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/snuffymcsnuff/pseuds/snuffymcsnuff
Summary: A series of 'em.





	1. First Look

The first time Nora lays eyes on the mercenary, dwarfed by his former associates as he is, she feels mostly disappointed.

It’s not that she expected to find Grognak the Barbarian in a place like The Third Rail, but this Maccready character looks less like a trained killer and more like someone she’d find lounging across Whitechapel Charlie’s counter, nursing his seventh lukewarm beer for the night. He might bear the colors of a soldier but he looks a far cry from Nate and his army buddies. 

Once the disgruntled gunners leave, he extends to his full height and it becomes painfully obvious that Nora has more than a couple of inches on the man, with or without her chewed-up combat boots. She studies him as they haggle about his “non-negotiable” salary, his shoulders the only broad part of him which is not saying much in the not-so-grand scheme of things. Is he even worth the caps, she wonders, knowing she needs muscle, a distraction for the ferals, not someone whose primary offense is apparently snarky remarks. 

But, as much as she hates to admit to even having the clichéd thought passing through her mind, desperate times do call for desperate measures. And Maccready might be even more desperate than her, what the way his shoulders slump in resignation as they agree on two hundred up front. She fully expects him to sulk about it but instead he looks… relieved. 

“You just bought yourself an extra gun”, he says, picking up a worn sniper rifle for emphasis. 

He’s smiling at her as they leave the dingy pub. And for no reason that she can discern, other than a certain kindness in those impossibly blue eyes of his, she finds herself smiling back.


	2. First Save

The first time Maccready pulls off a perfect headshot in her presence, they have barely left Goodneighbor. 

Perched on the edge of a corner not ten feet from the city’s front gate he pops a group of raiders one by one, effortlessly, almost gracefully. By the time the last raider falls, Nora is covered in a quickly cooling sheen of perspiration, heart hammering away in her chest, the recoil of her modded 10mm leaving tremors in her arm. Her new employee - no, companion - has barely broken a sweat. 

“Impressed yet?” He grins as she catches her breath against the brick wall next to him. And she can do nothing but nod her affirmation. 

Their following encounter, a small group of super mutants holed up around the next bend, leaves the mercenary slightly more winded and afterwards he grips his rifle tight, spitting blood onto one of the green-skinned corpses. He’d stepped in to prevent a mutie from slamming Nora into the next century with a well-placed swing of a studded board. A purple bruise blooms under the apple of his cheek, but it’s nothing a stimpack won’t fix. 

“Godda- dang green nasties…” He mumbles to himself, rifling through belt pouches for caps and spare ammo, tossing some 10mm rounds her way.

As she tucks away the loot, Nora decides that two hundred caps is a fairly low price for keeping her head attached to her body. 


	3. First Touch

The first time they touch, it is a simple thing, calloused fingers brushing her skin as he secures a length of bandage around her bicep. It’s done with such ease that Nora wonders at the number of faded scars and bruises that must lie just beyond his aged duster.

He makes little show of it, tying the bandage in a small knot and smooths it down with the flat of his palm so she can refasten her armor. Despite her gloves, Nora’s fingers are perpetually cold, fingernails turning blue at the slightest breeze. Maccready’s touch is neither freezing nor blazing. It’s just-so. Just right.

And as the mercenary pulls away to return the remaining bandages to one of his many pockets, Nora entertains the ridiculous thought of catching a stray bullet just for another chance at his fingers on her skin. An insane notion of course. 

Brushing it aside for now, she flashes Maccready a small grateful smile. 


	4. First Storm

The first time Nora finds herself in the angry eye of an irradiated storm it’s with Maccready at her side. 

At first she takes it for a hallucination. A med-X dose wrongly measured. A bad hit of jet that has yet to wear off. Hell, maybe that purified water she had earlier hadn’t been totally pure.  
Then her Geiger counter goes off, slowly at first but before long it’s pinging for every second that passes. And when the first green whip of lightning tears across the sky, followed by a deafening roar of thunder, Maccready quickly shoulders his rifle and steers them off the road and into the nearest rotten pile of timber; one that thankfully has all four of its walls and a roof to match. 

“Too late for rad-x now. It’d be a waste at this point,” he sighs, squinting out through a window at the roiling green sky. “Unless you’re in a sealed bunker, you’re gonna get rads. A whole lot more of ‘em outside of course. I picked up some rad-away a little while back, so let’s just wait it out.”

He jerks his head towards where Nora is sitting at the foot of a set of stairs. The pip-boy, still pinging off count after count, illuminates her face in the low light. If Maccready hadn’t noticed her switching the contraption’s light setting earlier, he’d be hard pressed to consider the green hue to her face anything other than said light. 

“I’m gonna be sick,” She manages to mutter before promptly losing her lunch on the floor in front of her, some of it splashing against her boots.  
Pulling a face, Maccready digs into his pocket and fishes out a small canister and hands it to her, what little is left of the purified liquid sloshing against the sides. Nora wipes her mouth on her sleeve and takes a less than modest swig, shoulders trembling as she tries to steady her breathing. Tucking away the empty canister, Maccready shoots her a concerned look. 

“How’re you feeling?”

Nora grimaces at the bits and pieces of regurgitated radstag stew on the floor in front of her. “Pretty fucking awful.” 

He chuckles lightly as he turns back to observe the storm still raging outside. The air around them is sizzling, his hairs standing on end. He’s not quite at ‘pretty fucking awful’-level himself, but it’s really only a matter of time. 

“Hey Mac?”

Opting to ignore the telltale oncoming waves of nausea for now, Maccready gives her a questioning ‘hm?’ in return. 

A small, tired smile stretches across pale skin. In the low light he can see a faint dusting of freckles covering her cheeks. For a second he wonders how he hasn’t noticed that detail sooner.

“I’m glad you’re here.”

It’s a softly spoken, but casual statement. It really shouldn’t make his stomach erupt in a flurry of butterflies, but that is exactly what happens; Along with the nausea it’s likely to make his knees buckle sooner or later. He goes and sits down next to her and feels the swarm inside his stomach quintuple when Nora carefully rests her head on his shoulder. 

Outside there’s another deafening roar. Hopefully it drowns out the sound of his rapidly increasing heartbeat. 

“Me too, boss.” 


	5. First Kiss

The first time she kisses him it is like something out of the faded pages of his favorite comics. 

Of course she is far from a damsel in distress and Maccready himself isn’t exactly the hulking hero out to save the day. But the stars erupting behind his eyelids feel real enough and for a hot second his hands drift toward her hips, eager to find purchase there, a safe place to rest. 

Instead they’re left hovering as she pulls away, eyes downcast. 

At first his addled mind settles for troubled confusion. After all, she kissed him. But then his gaze follows hers to the wedding band on her finger, and understanding floods his senses.  
“I’m sorry,” she breathes, touching a finger to still-burning lips. “You’re… I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have.”

Outside their ramshackle accommodations, the wind tears a wailing path through the wasteland. The wooden walls around them might as well be paper, he thinks, noting the coldness of the absence of her lips on his. He shuffles backwards, away from her and leans into the thin barrier behind him. She’s not ready. Neither is he. 

“Don’t worry about it,” he says, but deep down he knows it will gnaw at him. It has been so long since he was allowed even a sliver of happiness. He’d been content with just the hope of returning to Duncan, everything else had just been noise; up until this moment, that is. 

Neither of them exchange another word for the rest of the night. And like so many of his favorite comics, the conclusion crumbles away under his fingers. 


	6. First Disappointment

The first time Maccready is left behind, he looks dejected. Thin lips straighten into an even thinner line and he crosses his arms over his chest. 

‘It’s nothing personal,’ she tells him. The word bullshit almost passes his lips before he catches himself.

With naught but a glance over her shoulder, Nora tugs on the sleeve of that detective he’d heard so much about and together they leave. Just like that. Not even a month’s worth of work and he’s literally been replaced by a synth. If that realization didn’t sting so much, he’d almost have found it funny. 

Garvey is quick to offer him a place to stay amongst the sparse group of minutemen and other outcasts, but with Nora’s departure, suddenly Sanctuary feels like a prison. From the ramparts built along the bridge, he watches his employer and the synth disappear around the bend of the Red Rocket station, the sun setting behind them. 

“Don’t worry about the general,” Garvey cuts in, shrugging his rifle. “She always comes back.”

Maccready knows as much. He can see why, Sanctuary being the well-fortified corner that it has become under her leadership, but despite the stars overhead, despite the wide lanes and trees swaying in the wind, it never fails to leave him with a sense of unease. The rest of the world festers and yet Sanctuary Hills remain, governed by someone whose grip on a life before the bombs is still tangible. 

The ghosts of families linger here because they never really left.

That night Maccready looks up at the stars and think of the dimly lit bulbs spread across the rocky ceilings of his old home. Lucy is long gone. Duncan is out of his reach. 

Turning on his side, he silently prays for Nora’s safe return. 


	7. First Swear

The first time Maccready forgets about his promise to Duncan, Nora hears him swear no less than three times in a row. 

They’ve both grown disturbingly used to the lesser evils the Commonwealth likes to throw at them, ghouls and their ilk more of an annoyance than a real threat at this point. But when a giant Behemoth decked out in the tattered remains of old pond rides rises out of the water behind the boathouse they were quietly inspecting for potential ammo, Maccready lets a loud, surprised ‘What the FUCK’ loose upon the world. 

And Nora can’t help but second that statement. 

Logic says they both should have died that day at Swan’s Pond, but logic also usually takes a backseat to the insane proceedings of the Commonwealth. And so they manage, through sheer dumb luck and determination, to fell the boat-clad beast. But not before it manages to rend another expletive from Maccready, who’s at this point so busy counting shells and not getting turned into radioactive pond scum that he doesn’t catch the Behemoth making a beeline for his companion, anchor raised high in the air.

“What the- get the HELL AWAY FROM HER!”

He doesn’t stop to think about the broken promise, doesn’t have time to. The Behemoth roars as he unloads his rifle into the back of its unprotected legs, anchor no longer in the air. A moment and several more desperate but well-placed shots later it falls to its knees into the murky waters, ripe for the picking. And Nora does just that, pumping its bloated head full of so much lead that it’s a wonder that the beast remains upright. 

Not that it does so for long, toppling over into the pond, a wave of radioactive slush erupting around its hulking shape. 

“Fuckin’ A…” Maccready mutters to himself as they limp away from the Commons. 

And once again, Nora finds herself agreeing with the sentiment.


	8. First Dance

The first time Nora asks him to dance with her, he stares at her as if she has grown a second head.

There’s nothing worth celebrating on this eve of yet another fruitless day in the Commonwealth. Nora’s baby boy is still missing and despite Maccready turning over every leaf in their trek through the surrounding wasteland he is no closer to finding a cure for Duncan.

And yet a hand is extended to him, beckoning him unto the dusty floorboards of the makeshift bar that the Minutemen helped her erect in the middle of Sanctuary.

“You serious?”

Nora merely offers him a gentle smile in return. The worn old radio in the corner of the bar is playing a relaxed tune for once, some jazzy number that sounds like something Magnolia would sing on a slow night at The Third Rail. It’s not bad.

As the singer drones on about moving mountains, Maccready hesitantly lets himself be pulled to his feet, shooting a look over his shoulder at the synth detective still sitting at the bar.

“Try not to steal my beer while I’m gone, Valentine,” he says in jest, earning him a deadpan look from the synth.

“Couldn’t if I wanted to, kid. Gen 2, remember?” He drawls, the cigarette between his metallic fingers speaking to the opposite.

 _Yeah, yeah_ , Maccready mouths before his thoughts trail off into gibberish when Nora very deliberately grabs his hand and places it at the small of her back. The singer croons something about fire and it sure is starting to feel like the room is heating up. 

“You still with me?”

“Uh-huh,” he nods dumbfounded, unsure of what to do with his other hand, where to place his feet. The former vault-dweller-turned-general has a good three inches on him, so all of his usual chivalrous notions (of which there aren’t many, to be honest) seem to have been dashed. Not that he knows how to dance in the first place. Lucy tried to teach him, once, but there had been no music to guide them, only the soft lilt of her voice as she hummed a lullaby usually meant for their son.

Now his face is starting to feel hot, for a very different reason this time. Nora seems to notice, giving his hand a reassuring squeeze before gently guiding him out onto the floor, her other hand coming up to rest on his shoulder.

Slowly, awkwardly, he lets her take the lead, moving in time with her, doing his damnedest not to step on her feet. It’s ungraceful as all hell and it must look ridiculous to any of the other patrons watching but for once, Maccready finds himself actively enjoying something other than smoking cigarettes and making caps.

And if that isn’t a goddamn miracle, he doesn’t know what is.

“Thank you, by the way.”

Nora casually loosens the grip on his hand, instead clasping it in the one slung around his shoulders. They’re a hair’s breadth apart now and combined with the soft sensual tempo of the song, Maccready is starting to wish he wasn’t so keenly aware of the detective and the rest of the minutemen sitting just a few feet away.

“For what,” he asks, once again unsure of what to do with his own limbs. Between the choices that will get him socked in the jaw and the ones that will at the very least earn him some unwanted attention from onlookers, he settles for resting his hands on her hips. A little quirk of the lips from her tells him that was the right choice.

“For being around. I trust you. I just wanted you to know that.”

A warmth flutters in his chest at the words. And maybe the singer is right, maybe someone ought to call him crazy, but in this moment he really would move mountains for her.

“Aaaand for not stepping on my feet,” She finishes and just as she says it, Maccready’s train of thought derails long enough for him to miss the beat by a split-second and place his boot directly on top of hers.

It’s not a hard stomp by any means but still he reels back, apologizing profusely until he notices that Nora isn’t glowering at him, she’s _laughing._ And right in that moment, the softly purred words _Crazy in love, am I_ ring just a bit too true.


End file.
